


For Good Luck

by ellorgast



Series: Monster Socks! [11]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellorgast/pseuds/ellorgast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neil experiences manpain, and the origin of the lucky socks is revealed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At top speed, a pro hockey player can skate at speeds of over 45 km/h. In the event that two hockey players of average size and speed, holding no pro status but no less dedicated to the craft, collide on the ice, the resulting impact can produce several thousand pounds of force. With the aid of protective gear, the bodies of these players are toned and tested to withstand this level of force. Even in the unlikely event that one particular player, weighing in at just over 200 pounds, happens to lose his balance as a result of this impact, he knows how to twist his body to prevent the ice from doing any harm.

However, having survived rushing across the ice at top speeds, being crashed into by another player, and falling to a surface with the same resistance as concrete, if his body turns in a certain direction and his skate does not follow, that player is, in effect, fucked. 

Having already been hauled off the ice by his teammates and half-forgotten in the heat of the game, they found the player in question cheering on his teammate as he took a penalty shot, his right skate propped on his helmet and his hair soaked and matted from said recently-removed helmet.

Sasha, who knew how to shove through crowds and make people make way for him, reached him first. "Are you alright?"

Neil was grinning, his voice taking on a fanboyish pitch. "Did you see that?"

"See you take a dive? Yeah, it was pretty awful."

"No, that goal! Did you see that fucking goal?"

It took a bit for the excitement of the game to wrap up, and for Neil to stop shouting with the crowd. Out of force of habit, and despite his shrugged protests that he was fine, it didn't even hurt, they flanked their comrade as the players and their friends shuffled past, while Neil shrugged off his teammates' sympathies with "s'cool, man, my roommate's a doctor."

When the crowds had thinned enough for him to feel safe doing so, and the players had cleared the ice to let the zamboni do its job, Mamoru knelt down and pulled Neil's skate into his lap, the way that he had watched the hockey moms do with their kids. He supported the back of his leg as he removed the shin pad, and the sudden hiss from the brunette told him that it had been what held his injury stable. Underneath, the skin was already swollen against the ankle of his hockey skate. 

Jaden leaned over his shoulder. "That's not a good sign, is it?"

"Well," Mamoru said carefully, "the good news is that it's probably not your ankle. The swelling is too high up."

Neil was still remarkably jovial for someone who couldn't walk without assistance. "I suppose I shouldn't ask what the bad news is, huh?"

"I won't know what the bad news is until I get this thing out of my way." He set about unlacing the skate.

Jaden moved beside him. "Need help with that?"

Mamoru pulled the laces as loose as they would go. "Try to get it off without twisting."

Neil watched them with slowly-mounting trepidation. His skates were constructed to fit like a second skin, and never came off without a fight. "This is going to hurt like hell, isn't it?"

Mamoru knew better than to say yes. "You might want to brace yourself."

The nearest stable object was Kain's shoulder, which Neil gripped without asking. With careful planning, they managed to get it off with one sharp jerk, and Neil managed to nearly crush Kain's shoulder. The white-haired man barely flinched. "Motherfuaaaugh! Shit! I don't care how you do it, next time this happens, you fucking cut that thing off my foot!"

Nobody was listening. Jaden had recoiled onto the damp floor with the skate in his hands. Mamoru could do no such thing, as he was trying to hold Neil's foot stable, but his eyes were wide in shock. Sasha had his hand clamped over his nose and mouth, but still he managed to shout between knitted fingers, "My stars and saints Neil, do you ever take those horrible things off?"

The brunette was still cringing against Kain's shoulder, a solid wall of reassurance that stayed put when you needed it to, but he managed to grunt out, "what? You gave me them."

"I didn't think you'd wear them for the rest of time! I've never smelled anything so vile."

Jaden stared at the purple sock that was baring its teeth at Mamoru. "I can't believe you're touching it."

"I don't have much of a choice," the prince of Earth grumbled through clenched teeth.

"Hey, it's not that bad."

Sasha looked deeply offended. "Not that bad?! Have you washed them even once since your birthday? I think there's a small colony of microbes building skyscrapers between your toes."

"I think we may need to get your sense of smell tested," Kain noted dryly. 

"I do wash them, I mean I have," Neil explained reasonably, although he did not mention how often or how long ago the famous socks had been in contact with soap. "It's just hockey sweat, it happens. Look, I can't switch them out now, not this far into the season."

"If I'd known you would be getting them surgically attached to your feet, I would have gotten you seven pairs so you could rotate them."

"I think you're overlooking the definition of 'lucky socks,' Sasha."

"Do you sleep with them, too?" It was always impossible to read whether Kain's voice carried any hint of humor in it or not.

"Of course not. Who the hell sleeps in socks?"

Jaden looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the stadium at that moment, and that it was a painful show of solidarity that he had not yet fled to higher ground. "Whatever, can we just get that thing off so Mamoru can finish doing whatever he's doing without throwing up on Neil's foot?"

Mamoru looked at him. "You're telling me you want to know what his unwashed foot smells like under this thing?"

If it were possible to look any greener around his jawline, Jaden managed it. "Okay, just. Just hurry up, so we can tie plastic bags over his feet or something."

"I'm really feeling the love from you guys right now. It's nice to know I can get some fucking sympathy when I bust my leg up."

"Quit your whining and let Mamoru concentrate." Not long after Sasha said this, he squeezed Neil's shoulder, even though his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and his hair was still sticky from being under his helmet. 

A full heal would have been too visible in such a public place, but the pulse of power Mamoru sent from his fingers to sense the location of the injury emitted only a brief spark of gold that was too faint to notice under the lights. After a few moments, he looked up at the injured hockey player. "Are you still determined to maintain your policy of never letting me take care of your hockey injuries?"

Neil looked dubious. "Why?"

"Because you've fractured your tibia. Just a few inches above your ankle."

"What's that mean? What kind of recovery time am I looking at?"

"Depending on whether you need surgery, we're looking at you being in a cast for two or three months. Followed by a few months of physio. It'll probably be summer by the time you're walking unaided, let alone skating."

For the first time since being pulled off the ice, Neil paled dramatically. "What's my alternative?"

"Broken bones take the longest, but I could probably get it mended in a few hours. We could pass it off as a sprain next time anybody asks."

"You'll still have to miss a few games just to avoid suspicion," Sasha added. "Say three, four weeks."

Neil glared at the sound medical advice. "Fuck that. One week."

Mamoru looked as steady as anybody holding Neil's rank foot could have been. "Two weeks, and you'll wear a brace for a few practices."

"Done."

Everyone somehow managed to refrain from holding their noses as they loaded him into the back of the car, his leg held together with the aid of a shin pad and tightly-wound jacket. "I think you've already stunk all the luck out of those socks, Neil," Jaden commented. "A broken leg isn't exactly what I'd call luck."

Neil grinned as he leaned back against the window, his leg propped on the seat. "You kidding? The penalty shot that Takahashi took on my behalf won us the game. The socks still got it, bro."


	2. Chapter 2

It is a well-documented fact that an injured male, in the public sphere, is prone to brushing off his injury as a mere trifle. In the face of an audience, the injured male takes on a heroic persona, bravely grimacing through the pain and shrugging off sympathies as appreciated, but unnecessary, gifts. 

Furthermore, as the injured male transitions from the public to the private sphere, his heroic display reverses itself, devolving from a disdain for sympathy to a desperation for it. He loses the use of all limbs, having become paralyzed from the pain, which has grown to such mythical heights that it may only be tempered by creature comforts such as soft pillows and soup. 

Thus, by the time Neil had been half-carried across the threshold of their shared house, the brave hockey warrior who glared down opponents and barely flinched as pucks flashed by him at nearly 100 mph had been reduced to the emotional equivalent of a seven-year-old girl.

"Sashaaaaa, get me another pillow." 

Sasha looked unconcerned as he pulled the coffee table out of Mamoru's way. "I grew up with three sisters, Neil. Your voice needs to be about three octaves higher before you can even begin to make me listen to your whining ass."

"That's cold, man. Here I am with a broken leg, and you can't even be bothered to do this one little thing to ease my suffering." 

"Fuck you. Get Jaden to do it."

"Jadeeeeeen."

The blond gave him a look of horror. "Fuck, man, I'll do whatever you want as long as you never say my name like that again."

Kain and Mamoru were busy trying to remove the protective gear from his leg. It was taking longer than usual, because not nearly enough of the monster socks' stink had dissipated in the outside air, and Mamoru eventually had to leave the room to stop himself from gagging. 

"Kain?"

"What?"

"Can I have an ice pack?" 

"There's ice in the freezer. Sasha can go get it."

"But you make them better." Neil's voice took on a note of desperation.

"It's probably best not to use that tone of voice with me when I'm holding your slimy sock-encased broken leg."

With a dramatic groan, the brunette sank back onto the couch, looking like an overgrown child who had just been silenced by his parents. The couch was one of those black leather ones that looked like it belonged in a medical clinic waiting room, comfortable but clean and bland in personality, hence very obviously Mamoru's. They used to tease him that he looked like he was trying to decorate his home to match his future workplace, but now that they had a shared living space to which they all contributed, the muted black and white of Mamoru's furniture had to compete with the recycled orange tweed couch that was missing two legs, the stained recliner that only reclined if you knew how to ask nicely, the bowl-shaped wicker chair that broke if anybody sat in it, and the coffee table ringed with decades of coasterless drinks and dotted with cigarette burns. The shelves were cluttered with too many movies, CDs, and video games, and while Sasha had attempted to up the classiness of the room with paintings of his own doing, they clashed somewhat with the Jolly Roger flag and the Die Hard poster. 

Jaden emerged from the hall, a pillow dutifully in-hand. Neil perked up. "Nah, man, the one in the blue pillow case." 

The blond stared at him. "What's the difference?"

Neil looked affronted. "What's the difference! The softess-to-support ratio, obviously! That thing won't work on this couch."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Jaden disappeared back into the hall, but his stomps traced his path past Neil's door, into his room, out of his room, giant slam, and back into the living room, before a blue pillow came sailing through the air straight at Neil's face. "There's your fucking pillow, princess." 

"You could be a bit nicer, I mean I did just break my--"

"Shove it. I'll break your other leg."

Mamoru had returned, looking slightly more pale than before, and paused just outside the range of the socks' deadly fumes, looking uncertain over whether the risks involved were worth it. "Just for the record," he stated, "I don't think my healing abilities can do anything for toxins. Or bacteria. Or, uh... poison." 

Neil looked at him with childlike innocence. "What's that got to do with anything?"

Sasha nudged Mamoru's arm. "I got this." He strolled up to the couch, elbowed Kain aside, and grabbed the cuff of one of the socks.

"What are you doing? Get off." Sasha started pulling, and the sock was half off before Neil was suddenly scrambling to sit up, his voice edged in fear. "Hey wait. Stop. Stop!" The injured foot now unsocked, he made a grab for the other one. "Sasha, don't! I need that! Sasha!" Neil reached out desperately, only to have the small blond dodge easily out of his grasp.

Sasha held the socks out in front of him, purple and staring wildly back at Neil. "I'm burning these," he announced, triumph and disgust written on his features.

All the blood drained from Neil's face. "You can't."

"Try and stop me." He turned and fled from the room, purple socks bouncing helplessly in his hand.

Neil tried, and failed, to reach for him, but no matter how far he inched off the edge of the couch, his arms would not span the length of the room. "Sasha, no! I can't play without those! Sasha! Stop! I'll never make another slapshot for as long as I live!" 

When it finally became clear to him that his most treasured possession had been lost to him, Neil collapsed onto the couch, throwing a muscular arm across his face, the very picture of devastation. 

He probably would have stayed that way, stewing morosely at the unfairness of it all, had the shock of cold liquid misting the bottoms of his feet not made him jump so hard that his leg screamed in blinding pain. "Augh! Jaden! Ow! What! The fuck!"

Jaden wielded the bottle of Febreze like a gun. "Hey, I'm just doing us all a favor. Your feet are a biohazard." Several more squirts struck Neil's feet like miniature ice-cold bullets.

Neil wanted to twist himself up into a tortured ball like a slug when it encountered salt, but he thought his leg might fall off if he tried to move it again. 

Mamoru stared from his safe distance across the room. "Huh. Thanks, Jaden."

The blond saluted with his Febreze bottle. "I got your back." 

"All that did was cover the smell, though," observed Kain. "It doesn't do anything for all the microorganisms that I'm sure reside there." 

Jaden shrugged. "Hey, I just figured chemically engineered fresh scent was better than Neil's sweaty foot. I could probably dig up some bathroom cleaner if you think bleach would be nearly strong enough." 

"Nobody in the world loves me," Neil whimpered. "I'm doomed to die with all my friends pointing and laughing." 

"Hey, cheer up. I brought you T3s." Jaden rattled a bottle enticingly.

"Your weak-ass codeine won't salvage my socks or my poor crushed soul."

The blond popped the lid. "No, but it might make you less of a whiny bitch." 

Kain disappeared into the kitchen while Mamoru adjusted Neil's leg on the thick cushion they had propped it on, checking to make sure that he had not completely thrown the bones out of alignment when he was thrashing around. 

Neil sullenly let Jaden coax him into taking the pills, and swallowed half a glass of water in one gulp. "Do you want me to spray some perfume on it too? Sprinkle a little potpourri on it?"

Mamoru shrugged in the thick cloud of Febreze fumes and tossed a cushion on the floor for him to sit on. "Nah, I'm good."

Kain returned from the kitchen with a ziplock bag filled with water. He sat on the orange tweed couch with the bag held between his palms, and small ice crystals immediately began to frost the edges of the plastic. 

Deciding that the injured party was sufficiently drugged up, Jaden dropped to the floor with a Playstation controller in-hand. Mamoru had set up camp on the floor with Neil's leg in front of him, and the golden light that his hands began to emit was not so much a steady glow as it was a pulsing shimmer, rippling with life.

Neil watched the display as his brain began to turn foggy. "Can I have a beer?"

Kain opened his mouth to say no, but Mamoru beat him to the punch.

"Why not?" 

His prince barely broke his concentration. "Because you're full of acetaminophen and codeine, and death by liver failure is a nasty way to go."

"This sucks!" He whined, throwing his head back on the blue pillow. "My leg feels like shit and I can't even have my post-game beer."

Jaden was busy running over hookers in Grand Theft Auto. "Then maybe you shouldn't have broken it."

"Fuck you and your shitty Esperanto. Steal a better car." He paused for a moment before asking, "Then can I have a sandwich?"

Mamoru had settled in for a long haul, Kain was still playing with his half-frozen bag of slush, and Sasha was nowhere to be seen. Even with his back to the world, Jaden could tell that the task fell to him by default. "I'm busy. Make your own sandwich, gimpy." 

"You're not busy. You're driving a fucking Esperanto."

"This mission is way more important than your sandwich." 

"C'mon, man. I've been skating all day and my leg's busted and I can't move for hours. All I want is one sandwich."

Even from behind, he could tell that Jaden was breaking by the nervous twitch of his shoulders. "Let me steal this police car first."

"Fine, but it better be a damn good sandwich." 

"Shut up, or I'm not doing it."

"Can I play while you're gone?"

"No."

"I'll get you a better car."

Jaden hit pause and dropped the controller on the floor, well out of Neil's reach. "You're not playing my game, asshole." 

He disappeared into the kitchen, and the thought of food reminded Neil that the game left him dehydrated as well as hungry. He eyed the glass of water Jaden had set on the coffee table, well out of his reach. He tried, lamely, to make his arm go that far. "Kain?"

"What?"

"Can I have my water?"

"It's right there."

"Shit-head put it too far away on purpose. Will you hand it to me?"

Kain turned over the frosty bag in his hands. "I'm busy making an ice pack, like you asked."

"Please?"

With a longsuffering sigh, and without looking up from his work, he edged the coffee table closer with his toe. Neil held his hand out, clutching desperately, until his fingertips brushed cold glass. With some effort, he spun the glass closer with his fingertips until it dropped off the edge into his hand. "Ha! Victory is mine!"

Kain grunted. "You're welcome."

When Sasha reappeared from the hall, Neil made a point of not looking at him. He put his empty glass on the floor and stared at the pause screen on the TV. It worked, until Sasha came to stand in his way. "I didn't burn your socks."

"I don't believe you, you murderer." 

"They're soaking in a ridiculous amount of detergent and baking soda. With any luck, they will be safe for human contact when they're finished. Also, no amount of loofahs are going to make my hands feel clean again."

Neil tried to see around Sasha's stomach. "I bet you still ruined them. I bet they'll shrink."

"Please, I know more about fabric than you ever will. I think I can successfully launder one pair of socks."

"You've still tainted them."

"They were tainted long before I got my hands on them." Sasha held something out for him. It was grey and fuzzy, with bright cobalt eyes and a tongue sagging out lazily. "Peace offering?" 

Neil hesitated a moment before taking the stuffed husky from him. "I'm accepting it only because I don't want you killing this one, too."

Sasha gave him a huge smile that said he did not believe that for a second, and swept up the Playstation controller.

"That's Jaden's game."

"It's mine now."

"Then can I play?"

"No." 

"My leg's broken, man. I need something to take my mind off the pain."

"Tape an asprin to it and hug your doggy, you big baby."

Neil huffed; Sasha was not nearly as easily coerced as Jaden was. He resigned himself to watching Sasha flip over the recently-won police car. Between them, Kain had turned the object in his hands from a bag of water to a bag of meticulously frozen slush. He was always begging ice packs off of his fearless leader, because he always got them to the perfect consistency: just squishy enough not to hurt, but cold enough that they stayed frozen for a while. Heck, given Kain's attention to detail, it was very likely that the distribution of ice crystals was entirely consistent throughout the bag.

The way that he turned the bag over in his hands, folding the frozen parts back into the liquid, made Neil think of the 7-11 Slurpee machines back home. Man, he would kill for a big cup of Cherry Dr. Pepper Slurpee right about now. "Hey Kain."

"What."

"Can you do that to anything other than water? Say, freeze a beverage of some kind?"

"I'm not making you a frozen drink, Neil."

"Hey man, I was just curious."

"You were thinking it."

"But if you were to..."

"No."

"Just one?"

Kain held up the bag of slush that would look delicious if he did not desperately want to feel it on his leg even more than he wanted it in his mouth. "Do you want this ice pack or not?"

"...Yes," he conceded.

Kain rested a hand on Mamoru's shoulder as he leaned over him to set the bag carefully over Neil's swollen leg. The brunette let a moan escape his throat. "Oh, fuck, that feels good."

The golden shimmer faded as Mamoru paused to rub his eyes wearily. "How are you holding up?" Kain asked. Of course he would give Mamoru sympathy while Neil had to beg for it. Kain jumped to attention if he thought Mamoru had a paper cut.

"This is going to be a long night," the honored prince admitted.

Of course, he was allowing Neil to bypass months of painful recovery, so he was inclined to forgive him for being the center of the universe. "You can take a break whenever you want, man. I'm not going anywhere."

Mamoru shook his head. "Every minute that bone stays broken, you're at risk for throwing the pieces out of alignment. If they aren't lined up to heal the way they should, nothing I do here is going to help you, and you're going to the hospital anyway. I'll feel better knowing you aren't at risk."

"Fine, but like, take pee breaks or something. And tell Kain to stop hovering over you like an old woman."

"I'm not hovering."

"You're watching Sasha pick up hookers and you hate GTA. You want to get me more water while you're hovering?" It was a rhetorical question, but Kain grabbed his empty glass anyway.

"Fine, but you're not getting ice."

He passed Jaden on the way into the kitchen, who dropped a plate of sandwich on Neil's stomach with all the courtesy of an overworked waitress in a truck stop diner. "I hope you choke on it," he grumbled.

"Thanks, man."

"I might have spit in it." As he said this, the brunette already had half the sandwich crammed into his mouth, and he gave Jaden a thumbs up as if to say, "I am totally cool with spit sandwiches." If he hoped to hinder Neil's enjoyment of his food, he had chosen the least easily grossed out man alive.

Neil devoured the rest of his sandwich while Sasha and Jaden competed for dominance of the controller, and Kain returned with the non-iced water to resume his hovering. Aside from the pain and the missed games, being laid up with a broken leg was not such a bad deal, really. He got free food, and pillows, and full dominance over the comfy couch, and nobody even expected him to rinse his plate later.

Full of codeine and sandwich, with the warm hum of Golden Crystal healing powers buzzing through his leg and the sound of Jaden and Sasha arguing over which GTA radio station to play, Neil fell asleep, a stuffed husky dog nestled under his arm.

When he woke, the sky was dark outside, and the television was silent. He could hear talking and the banging of pots in the kitchen, and maybe that meant there was more food in his future. Beside him, Mamoru was no longer leaning intently over his leg. In fact, he seemed to have given in to gravity altogether, his head resting in his arms on the couch. He gave his elbow a prod. "Mamoru? Hey, you okay?"

One blue eye opened beneath his dark hair, and focused sleepily on Neil's face. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I fixed it. Your leg's good now."

"Hey, thanks. I at least owe you a beer or something for that."

His eyes were already closing again. "Mm-hmm."

When Kain appeared in the doorway moments later, Neil could tell that he was trying not to fly into overprotective mode at the sight of his prince collapsed onto the couch. It did not work very well, as he still could have won marathons with how quickly he appeared at Mamoru's side. "Is he alright?"

"He's fine. He's just tired. Not exactly every day that he gets hours of unbroken use out of his crystal."

"I told him he should just quit and finish up tomorrow. That bone must be knitted enough to stay in place by now, even if it's not safe to walk on it yet."

Neil paused. "Actually--uh, yeah I guess he finally took your advice. He said he'd do the rest in the morning, and I won't be able to get up until then. I guess it's taking longer than he thought. Hey, is someone making food? Can I have some?"

"What? Yeah, sure." Kain was leaning over Mamoru, gently trying to shake him awake. The best response he got was an incoherent mumble. "Okay, it is clearly somebody's bedtime. Come on, up you get." He took Mamoru under the arms and hauled him to his feet, to which the sleepy prince gave all the resistance of a rag doll.

Left on his own, Neil wondered how much more he could milk this situation. For starters, he had nothing to do.

"Jadeeeeeeeen, I'm bored and my leg hurts. Can I play your game now?"

It was only when Mamoru stumbled out of bed late the next morning, and asked Sasha what he was doing serving Neil coffee, when he had two perfectly functional legs with which to get his own, that Neil received several sound punchings for his deception.

***

Neil woke, naked and bathed in sunshine, late on a Saturday morning. The former was a fairly typical result of his sleeping habits, and the latter meant that he had slept in later than usual. If he was going to skip out of practice due to a fake ankle sprain, he might as well enjoy not having to get up early for it. 

Before leaving the room, he procured all the necessities: briefs with funny phrases on them ("Worn to be Wild" in this case), wrinkled jeans (which had only been on the floor for a few days and therefore qualified as "clean"), and purple monster socks (which were still full of mystical lucky powers, levels of cleanliness notwithstanding). 

He found the house surprisingly quiet for how late it was. For a house of five males, one of whom was Jaden, "quiet" was not a natural state to be in when people were not asleep. 

It was eerie, but Twilight Zone levels of strangeness were not reached until he entered the living room. In the broken recliner, shivering in Neil's favorite hoodie and a heavy blanket, was Kain. Neil did a double take. "Kain?"

"Huh." Beneath his unkempt white bangs, a pair of glassy, unfocused grey eyes stared vaguely in Neil's direction.

"You OK?"

"I'm cold." 

"That's impossible. You don't get cold. You can't get cold."

"I'm cold." His teeth were chattering.

Neil wondered whether he had stepped into some mysterious alternate dimension in which Kain was not a perfect being. A faint cough from down the hall was comforting, at least, in that it told him he was not alone.

"...do you want anything?"

"Gatorade."

Neil headed for the kitchen. The coffee machine was not even on, which was like, a sin in a house that contained Mamoru. He grabbed a bottle of Red Gatorade out of the fridge, and brought it to the alien creature in the chair who was masquerading as Kain. He did not even move to take it. "Not that one. Blue."

Neil looked at it. "It's fucking Gatorade. It all tastes like sugar and piss anyway."

"I don't like Red."

With a heaving sigh, Neil returned to the kitchen and traded the Red Gatorade for Blue. Kain worked up the effort to put his hand out from under the blanket to take the plastic bottle, but instead of drinking it, he stared at the bottle blankly. "It's cold." 

"Yeah, it was in the fridge."

"It's too cold." 

"Well, it's all we have." 

"Nuke it." 

"What?"

"Nuke it. Make it warm."

"That's fucking disgusting. You're going to drink hot Gatorade?"

"I'm cold." Kain curled into the broken recliner, as though he hoped to find some heat source hidden beneath the ugly exterior, a new round of shivers sweeping over him. Somewhere behind one of the bedroom doors, Neil thought he heard puking noises. If they'd let him sleep through a party last night, he was going to give them all shit.

With another exasperated sigh, Neil dutifully took the Gatorade back to the kitchen, dumped some into a chipped coffee mug, and heated it in the microwave. The blue liquid was steaming when he handed it to Kain.

"It's too hot." 

"You're the fucking Iceman! Make it cold, then."

He looked like he could barely hold the mug without assistance, let alone change its temperature, but Kain dully tried to focus his attention on it anyway. At first, nothing at all happened. Then the mug suddenly shot from steaming to frozen in half a second, and with a sharp crack of shattering ceramic, the floor was littered with broken mug and frozen blue mush.

With a frustrated groan, Neil began cleaning up the mess, muttering over the sound of Kain's teeth chattering and someone's muffled coughing. He stomped back into the kitchen, filled another mug with Blue Gatorade, and microwaved it in five second increments until it had reached room temperature.

"Here," he growled, when he shoved the mug into Kain's hands. Without so much as a "thank you," the white-haired sickie began to gulp it down.

"Oh good, you're up." Mamoru stood in the doorway, and he, at least, looked relatively normal.

"Yeah. Hey, do you know what's up with Kain? I think he's been replaced by somebody who feels."

"That would be the fever and chills kicking in. Hey, did you get your H1N1 vaccination, by any chance?"

"What? Yeah, our whole team did. Why?"

"Well that's good, because apparently everyone else is too cool for vaccines during a pandemic."

Neil paled as his mind gradually managed to put two and two together. He glanced down at his commander, who had been reduced to a shivering lump. "...Everyone?"

Mamoru did not look nearly as nervous as he should have been over waking up to find himself with three full-time Swine Flu patients in his care. Must have been the med student in him. "Looks like it."

Neil, on the other hand, could feel his panic rising. "Can't you... can't you do something about that?"

"Healing doesn't include virus-killing. The mechanics of that just don't work with what my powers were made for. Oh, I will be helping them along. Keeping all their organs in-tact and making sure their own immune systems don't try to eat them alive. But that's why I very much appreciate your assistance while I'm taking care of them." That smile was reserved for diplomatic exchanges, and Neil realized he had just been roped into something without his consent. Maybe he shouldn't have milked it so hard when he was the one being taken care of. Maybe he just shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning. 

"What kind of assistance?"

"Oh, you know. Thanks to the Tamiflu, Jaden's been throwing up for the past hour, and he didn't always aim especially well, so the bathroom floor needs cleaning. Sasha pulled an abdominal muscle from coughing so hard, and I can't even touch that until his other symptoms die down, so until then he can't sit up on his own. He's also asking for tea, extra hot, and he's expressed the desire for someone to come read to him. We're also out of tissues, and we're in need of more pain medication, so somebody needs to run out to the store. They'll also be needing to eat something that doesn't upset their stomachs soon, so someone needs to make some soup and crackers. And we need to make sure they stay hydrated. By the way, don't let them have straight Gatorade. The sugar will probably make them puke."

No sooner did he say this, then Kain leaned over and puked blue right on Neil's feet. Right on his socks. 

Mamoru did not even blink. "Welcome to the next 7 to 10 days."


End file.
